1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to utility metering systems, and more particularly to a method and system for communicating between multiple utility metering devices and the utility company.
2. Relevant Background
Utility companies use utility meters to regulate and monitor utility usage. Some exemplary utility meters may include electrical power meters, water flow meters, gas meters and the like. Early utility meters were electromechanical in nature converting the flow of electricity, water or gas through the utility meter into mechanical movement. The mechanical movement was used to turn a recording device which recorded the amount of services being used. As technology improved over the years, the design of the utility meter incorporated new innovations such as increased processing capability within the utility meter, elimination of mechanical parts, better accuracy and the like.
Previously, gathering information from the utility metering devices involved having a utility craftsperson physically go to the utility meter periodically and read the meter. The utility craftsperson would then enter the amount of service the consumer was using and proceed on to the next meter. In a densely packed neighborhood, the utility craftsperson could inspect many utility meters in short period of time while avoiding unfriendly pets, unhappy consumers and the occasional drenching rain. As the utility meter reader moved on to more rural expanses, the amount of time needed to read the utility meter and record the amount of services used by the consumer increased dramatically.
As the utility meters have evolved, the ability to gather information from the utility meters has also evolved. For example, newer utility meters currently have the ability to communicate through wireless means with each other. Communicating wirelessly between utility meters may allow the utility meter to gather information about itself as well as other utility meters. One particular utility metering device that gathers information for the utility company is a collector meter.
A collector meter may be a specialized utility meter that gathers information from other utility devices using a LAN and then sends the gathered information to the utility company over a WAN. Commonly, collector meters communicate with other utility meters in its LAN over unlicensed frequency spectrums. Once information has been gathered by the collector meter, the collector meter transmits this information via WAN to the utility company. In some instances, the transmission of information may take place over a telephone line. In this example, the utility company may have a dedicated land based telephone line for communicating. However, having a dedicated telephone line my not be efficient from a cost or access point of view.
Newer collector meters have taken advantage of the increased coverage of the cellular networks. Instead of using a land based telephone line, newer collector meters utilize cellular telephones to transmit information to and from the utility company. However, some collector meters may utilize unlicensed frequencies that may be close to the cellular telephone frequencies. When this occurs, the collector meters may experience unwanted interference from unlicensed LAN communications to the WAN communications between the collector meter and the utility company, or conversely, from the WAN communications to the LAN communications.